Intel P67 motherboard on show at ASRock

COMPUTEX 2010: It's only 10:20am on the morning before Computex 2010 really starts, but ASRock has its Intel P67 motherboard - the P67 Extreme 3 - up for show already.

Intel's P67 chipset will pair with the upcoming LGA1155 Sandy Bridge CPUs not due until next year, so this board is somewhat early to say the least. ASRock does confirm what we already knew though - there's no USB 3 integrated into the P67 PCH but two of the six native SATA ports (in white) have been upgraded to SATA 6Gbps. ASRock also includes a pair of extra (white) SATA 6Gbps ports from a Marvell chipset too.

The P67 Extreme 3 claims support for DDR3 2,600MHz+ so we anticipate an even faster memory clocking Sandybridge CPU, although there are still "only" four DDR3 slots and support for the usual dual channel memory.

ASRock throws in 12+2 phases of power for the CPU socket, and claims 3-way ATI CrossFire and Nvidia SLI support, even though the bottom slot (in white) is still only a PCI-Express 4x electrically and is wired from the P67 PCH. The LGA1155 Sandybridge CPU still only offers a single 16x lane as well, as the boards second PCI-Express slot (in blue) is only 8x electrically too.

Given the fact that the upcoming X58 replacement, LGA2011, appears to be even further into server territory (and therefore out of our consumer/prosumer domain) then Intel will have to offer something considerable from the CPU to warrant upgrades from the current LGA1156 platform. There's also nothing to plug the gap for a full, dual/triple PCI-Express 16x lane multi-GPU solution either.

It looks like the upcoming P67 PCH requires no more cooling than the current P55, and we think the "7" in 67 is its native support for SATA 6Gbps and RAID - if we reference the current difference H55 and H57 chipsets.

We grabbed what photos we could as the stand was still being prepared, so we'll try to update this article later with better pictures.

Intel's P67 hasn't convinced us it's upgrade worthy yet. Time will tell what the Sandybridge CPUs can offer then. Let us know your thoughts, in the forums.

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17 Comments

heh heh heh, first post :)
with the amount of RFP (raw floating power) sandy bridge is reported to have, it looks awesome already, and 2600 DDR3 memory is just bonkers, you have to be a seriously amazing overclocker to do that

overall, its a shame intel will not suppport USB 3.0 until 2012 but thats the only downside to the motherboard.

well seems like the only immediate benefit for USB 3 is HD webcams, external SSD and external graphics solutions (as existing solutions only use ExpressCard PCIe x1 bandwidth anyways). So I don't really care if it takes a long time before this is "native". Meanwhile the NEC controller (I assume everbody uses this) do a great job.

Originally Posted by wuyanxunot sure why Rich wrote "'only' 4 memory slots". is 4 not enough? surely we need to push memory manufacturers for denser memory rather than more slots on motherboard.

Possibly hoping tri channel would trickle to the prosumer boards? ive lost track of whats to come, and where the prosumer market is heading. So its the only thing i can think of.

I'd like to see triple channel, but until the memory controllers support it (like those on 1366) there is no point :(

I believe 2011 is going to support quad channel (8 slots) memory, although according to some guy from intel, whom I spoke to at channel expo 2010, 1366 is going to see new stuff Q3/4 and 2011 isn't going to appear till Q3/4 2012!

Come on! At this point in the game ALL Mobo's should have 16x PCi-E slots no matter how many slots are being used. Just friggin make them all X16 for crying out loud as I hate X8 + X8 because it gimps crossfire/sli set ups. if you manufactures really love us consumers you will make them all X24 :)

4 memory slots are good but 6 slots are better or just buy 4 sticks of 4GB memory (after selling a kidney of course)

with all the posts about no USB 3.0, that's not an epic fail, in actual fact it leaves it open for the USB 3.0 card market, that way you also free up (albeit not much) CPU, n/b, s/b what ever would be needed to process the USB bridge.

Originally Posted by Krayzie_B.o.n.e.Come on! At this point in the game ALL Mobo's should have 16x PCi-E slots no matter how many slots are being used. Just friggin make them all X16 for crying out loud as I hate X8 + X8 because it gimps crossfire/sli set ups. if you manufactures really love us consumers you will make them all X24 :)

4 memory slots are good but 6 slots are better or just buy 4 sticks of 4GB memory (after selling a kidney of course)

Originally Posted by MorpheusUKwith all the posts about no USB 3.0, that's not an epic fail, in actual fact it leaves it open for the USB 3.0 card market, that way you also free up (albeit not much) CPU, n/b, s/b what ever would be needed to process the USB bridge.

I'd have to disagree, with the massive speed gain of USB 3 over USB 2 to have new boards not supporting it is pretty fail.

Originally Posted by Krayzie_B.o.n.e.Come on! At this point in the game ALL Mobo's should have 16x PCi-E slots no matter how many slots are being used. Just friggin make them all X16 for crying out loud as I hate X8 + X8 because it gimps crossfire/sli set ups. if you manufactures really love us consumers you will make them all X24 :)

4 memory slots are good but 6 slots are better or just buy 4 sticks of 4GB memory (after selling a kidney of course)

You don't understand how things work.

^^ This response.

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